Introduction

[1] The title of this presentation incorporates
both the task assigned to me in this symposium and the content of my
presentation. Mel Gibson is a self-confessed traditionalist Catholic, and
the task assigned to me is to explain that contemporary traditionalist
Catholicism. That explanation is the direct focus of this paper. To the
extent that Gibson is a well-known traditionalist, and the son of an even
better known traditionalist with bizarre and well-documented views,
understanding traditionalism contributes indirectly to understanding Mel
Gibson. Neither of those two understandings will permit me to make any
judgment about Gibson's film, The Passion of the Christ, which I
have not seen, but they do raise and have raised questions about the film
that would be very serious if verified. I will acknowledge those questions
as I proceed.

[2] Instead of speaking of traditionalist
Catholicism I speak of sectarian Catholicism, because traditionalist
Catholicism exhibits all the characteristics of a sect, a religious body
that has separated itself from a larger religious institution. The sect's
separation from the larger religious institution is accompanied by claims
of moral and/or doctrinal purity, of true religion abandoned by the larger
institution, and of self as the true religion in opposition to the
mainline institution. The exclusivity of sectarians in general and, in
this case, of Catholic sectarians in particular leads them to eschew
dialogue of every kind, including ecumenical dialogue.1
One is either a member of the sect and, therefore, saved or not a member
and, therefore, not saved.

[3] Contemporary Catholic sectarianism is a small,
global movement that arose after the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s,
largely in response to the Council's embrace of a renewed vision of
Church, which softens the monarchical papacy Gibson cherished in his youth
and continues to cherish, a new theological idea of religious liberty
previously unheard of in Catholic circles, and previously-disdained
ecumenical dialogue with other Christian and non-Christian religions. The
movement crystallized in 1971 with the prohibition of the Latin Mass
authorized by and in use since the sixteenth-century Council of Trent.
Though the movement is diverse, its flagship became the Society of St.
Pius X, a priestly fraternity founded in 1971 by dissident French
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who was eventually excommunicated by Pope John
Paul II for consecrating bishops to ensure the continuation of his
society. I do not believe it is politically insignificant that the present
Vatican official charged with bringing traditionalist dissidents back into
the Roman fold, Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos, Prefect of the Congregation of
the Clergy, is the same official who, after viewing a rough cut of The
Passion, declared to conservative Catholic Zenit News on September 18,
2003, that it was "a triumph of art and faith" that would bring people
"closer to God."2As frequently happens with Vatican statements to the press, a barrage of
negative comments about the film has led to more mature consideration and
more restrained and muted comments.

[4] It is very difficult to assess the number of
Catholic traditionalists around the world or in the United States.
Christopher Noxon's New York Times Magazine3article estimated the number in the United States at 100,000, but
extrapolating from my personal knowledge of a number of Traditionalist
groups, I believe that number to be inflated. The real number may be
closer to half that, though their financial support, as in Gibson's case,
provides them a voice well beyond their numbers. It is also a mistake to
assume that all traditionalists are the same and their concerns are the
same. They are a broad, ideologically-divided group, loosely united in
their repudiation of the aggiornamento Pope John XXIII set as an
objective for his Council. The most radicalized of the Traditionalist
group are so incensed by John XXIII and what they perceive as the
Council's betrayal of true (by which, unwittingly, they mean Tridentine)
Catholicism that they adhere to a bizarre doctrine of sede-vacantism,
which means literally the Chair [of Peter] is vacant and embodies the
ludicrous doctrine that all the Popes since Pius XII have been false
Popes. It is not clear that Mel Gibson adheres to sede-vacantism,
though he does repudiate Vatican II, but it is clear by self-confession
that his father does, and the temptation to visit the sins of the father
on the son is powerful. For the sake of justice, of course, that
temptation should be resisted, a restraint from which the press has
absolved itself in the present debate.

Sectarian Theology

[5] How should we characterize the Tridentine
theology that Traditionalists espouse? The Council of Trent, the Catholic
response to the teachings of the Reformers, specifically those of Martin
Luther, was charged to consider two things: Catholic dogma and needed
reform. The Council adhered scrupulously to this charge, which meant that
it did not produce a general systematic consideration of Catholic theology
but only specific treatment of those things that the Reformers had
challenged. The Council was "a more or less valid and effective reply to
Lutheran and Calvinist questions and challenges. But [history] has also
recognized that in the course of the following four centuries a too rigid
desire to stick to the letter of the Council has sometimes blocked the
progress which ought to have taken place within the structures of the
Church, in response to new challenges and questions."4
Since the Reformers had not challenged it, Trent produced no systematic
ecclesiology. Its insistence on the essentially hierarchical nature of
ministry, however, in the sense that ministry is something done only by
clerics, produced in the following four centuries a matching insistence on
the essentially hierarchical nature of Church. It was within this
exclusively hierarchical view of Church that pre-Vatican II Catholics
lived out their lives; it was this hierarchical view that the Second
Vatican Council roundly rejected; and it is to this hierarchical view that
Catholic traditionalists currently adhere.

[6] A core doctrine of this hierarchical model of
Church is the doctrine that the Roman Catholic Church is the one, true
Church established by Jesus Christ on the foundation of Peter the Rock. As
Pius XII taught in his encyclical letter Mystici Corporis, written
by Jesuit Father Sebastian Tromp, Professor of Fundamental Theology at
Rome's Gregorian University (1943),5
and had to repeat again in his encyclical Humani Generis (1950)6
because so many Catholic theologians disputed the teaching, the Body of
Christ is identical to the historical Roman Catholic Church. An obvious
corollary of that doctrine, to which a majority of Catholic theologians at
the time could not subscribe, was that non-Catholic Christians, even
though they might be in the state of grace, could not be considered
members of Christ's Body and, therefore, could not be saved. That doctrine
was embedded in an ancient Roman claim: extra ecclesiam nulla salus,
no salvation outside the Church. In 1947, Jesuit Father Leonard Feeney
interpreted that aphorism in such a rigid sense that he was excommunicated
by Pius XII. Gibson apparently shares Feeney's reading of the text, maybe
even against his own better judgment.

[7] On being asked by Peter Boyer, interviewing him
for a New Yorker article, whether being a Protestant disqualified
him [Boyer] from salvation, Gibson responded simply: "there is no
salvation outside the Church." He then went on to talk about his
non-Catholic wife. "My wife is a saint. She's a much better person than I
am. She's Episcopalian, Church of England. She prays, she believes in God,
she knows Jesus, she believes in that stuff. And it's just not fair if she
doesn't make it, she's better than I am. But that [outside the Church
there is no salvation] is a pronouncement from the Chair. I go with it."7
Things could not be more clearly articulated - both Gibson's going with
the Chair and his innate discomfort with the Chair's teaching, maybe even
with God, if his wife is not saved. It is too bad that he rejects the
Second Vatican Council, for it rejected Pius XII's identification of the
Body of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church8
and taught clearly for the first time in Catholic history that many of the
significant elements and endowments which "build and give life to the
Church itself can exist outside the visible boundaries of the Catholic
Church: the written word of God; the life of grace; faith, hope, and
charity, with the other interior gifts of the Holy Spirit." And all of
these "are capable of giving access to that communion in which is
salvation."9
Traditionalist Catholics believe only Catholics go to heaven (without
every considering where that leaves Jesus the Jew); the contemporary
Catholic Church believes, on the basis of what it considers the revelation
of God, that God saves whom God saves. It is here that the core of the
opposition to Gibson's film is founded.

Scripture and Mel Gibson

[8] Another important corollary of the doctrine
that the Roman Catholic Church is the one, true Church of Christ relates
to sacred scripture and its interpretation, and is at the heart of both
Gibson's project and the reaction to it. In the traditionalist doctrine,
only the Catholic Church is authorized and equipped to interpret the true
meaning of the biblical word of God, and that word of God is to be
interpreted vi verborum, according to the words, that is,
literally. That claim was jealously and assiduously protected against all
competing claims in the post-Reformation ages, not least by the Tridentine
declaration that the only version of the Bible that was "authentic" was
the ancient Latin Vulgate, that this Vulgate was the only text to be used
"in public lectures, disputes, preaching, and exposition," and that "no
one, under any pretext, was to presume or dare to reject that version."10
Nor was anyone to hold an interpretation of scripture contrary to that
held by the Church, "whose task it was to judge the true meaning and
interpretation of sacred scripture."11
All of that was irrevocably changed, beginning in the pontificate of Pius
XII and culminating in the promulgation of the Second Vatican Council's
Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum, in November
1965. Gibson, of course, rejects the Council as a betrayal of true
Catholicism and, therefore, pays no attention to its instructions. He
reads the Bible literalistically, and that is what has some Catholic
scholars anxious.

[9] The Pontifical Biblical Commission articulates
the contemporary Catholic approach to reading the scriptures. "The
historical-critical method is the indispensable method for the scientific
study of the meaning of ancient texts. Holy scripture, inasmuch as it is
the 'word of God in human language,' has been composed by human authors in
all its various parts and in all the sources that lie behind them. Because
of this, its proper understanding not only admits the use of this method
but actually requires it."12
This simply codifies what the Council had said in Dei Verbum:
"Seeing that in sacred scripture, God speaks through human beings in human
fashion, it follows that the interpreters of sacred scripture, if they are
to ascertain what God has wished to communicate to us, should carefully
search out the meaning which the sacred writers really had in mind, that
meaning which God had thought well to manifest through the medium of their
words."13

[10] To attain the meaning God intended in a
scriptural text, the interpreter must utilize all the tools available for
getting at the meaning which "the sacred writers, in given situations and
granted the circumstances of their time and culture, intended to express
and did in fact express, through the medium of a contemporary literary
form."14 The meaning of scripture, the
Biblical Commission insists, is embedded in the "literal sense . . .
expressed directly by the inspired human authors."15
This literal sense is not to be confused with the literalist sense beloved
of all biblical fundamentalists, including Catholic Traditionalists and
Mel Gibson. It is his Traditionalist, literalist reading of the passion
narratives that has some Catholic scholars anxious about his film. They
know not only that a literalist approach to the texts is not the
contemporary Catholic approach that distances Jews in general from
culpability in the charge of deicide but also that similar literalist
passion plays have fueled Christian animosity and violence towards Jews in
the past. The same knowledge has raised the guard also of Jewish scholars
and the Anti Defamation League.

[11] Prior to the Second Vatican Council, the
charge of deicide against Jews was taken as proven in Catholic circles.
The liturgical celebration of Good Friday, the ritual memorial of Jesus'
passion and death, included prayers for "the perfidious Jews." The Council
banished such prayers, and the mindset that underpinned them, with the
publication of its Declaration on the Relation of the Church to
Non-Christian Religions. "Even though the Jewish authorities and those who
followed their lead pressed for the death of Jesus," it decreed, "neither
all Jews indiscriminately at that time nor Jews today can be charged with
the crimes committed during his passion."16
There follows an instruction. "Consequently all must take care, lest in
catechizing or preaching the word of God, they teach anything which is not
in accord with the truth of the gospel message or the spirit of Christ."17
That instruction could have been written specifically for Mel Gibson and
the fear is that, ignoring the Vatican Council in general, he has ignored
this important ecumenical instruction in particular. Abraham Foxman of the
Anti-Defamation League calls attention to the dangers of a literalist
interpretation. Mel Gibson is not necessarily anti-Semitic, Foxman judges,
but he is most definitely "insensitive." The real problem is that any
visual presentation of a literalist reading of the passion narratives can
overwhelm, and all the reports suggest that Gibson's passion play is
emotionally overwhelming. Reports of people crying during a
viewing are common. What bothers Foxman, and correctly, is that in that
overwhelmed state any message of love can be twisted into something
hateful. The film can, beyond any intention of the filmmaker, "fuel,
trigger, stimulate, induce, rationalize, legitimize anti-Semitism."18

[12] Another issue fueling both Catholic and Jewish
concern about the visual presentation of Jesus passion and death in
Gibson's movie is that he is drawing his image-information not only from
the passion narratives in the gospels but also from the visions of a
nineteenth-century Augustinian nun, Anna Catherina Emmerich. Emmerich, a
Westphalian farm girl, began to have visions at an early age and
eventually, after making vows as an Augustinian nun, developed the
stigmata. Her experiences, as always, attracted the attention not only of
Church authorities but also of the curious. In Emmerich's case, among the
curious was the romantic poet, Clemens Brentano, who wrote down her
visions of Jesus sufferings and, after her death in 1824, published them
in a book under the title of The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ.19
Gibson acquired the book as part of a lot sale when a Catholic convent
closed down and is on record as stating that Emmerich's images are
amazing. "She supplied me with stuff I never would have thought of."20
She also supplied him with stuff that is not in the gospel narratives and
has no claim, therefore, to inspiration or authenticity. It may be
particularly "insensitive," in Foxman's word, to use those images to tell
the story he wishes to tell, namely, the passion of Jesus as told by the
gospel narratives. There are some who are mightily concerned that the
vividness of Emmerich's imaginative representations, for instance, of the
scourging of Jesus, could do much more than the gospel images to
stimulate, fuel, or legitimate violent anti-Semitism. Gibson's response to
that concern might increase, rather than salve, it. "Modern secular
Judaism wants to blame the Holocaust on the Catholic Church," he says.
"And it's a lie. It's revisionism. And they have been working on that one
for a long time."21
Bizarre notions, along with bizarre behavior, are part and parcel of every
exclusive sect. Nothing bonds a group together more efficiently than a
perceived common enemy.

Conclusion

[13] In summary, then, what can be said about
sectarian Catholicism, Mel Gibson, and The Passion of the Christ?
Sectarian Catholicism is rooted in the sixteenth-century Council of Trent
and rejects absolutely the twentieth-century Second Vatican Council as an
unwarranted betrayal of that root. It is an exclusive sect, blessing its
members with the promise of salvation, cursing non-members with the
promise of damnation. The sect regards itself as the remnant of the one,
true, Catholic Church established by Jesus on Peter the Rock, whose Roman
sedia has been vacant since the death of Pius XII. That one true
Church has complete control over the sacred scriptures, to the extent that
it and it alone can declare which version of the biblical text is inspired
and which is not inspired and that it and it alone can asserting the
indubitable meaning of any biblical text. As a self-confessed and publicly
active traditionalist Catholic, Mel Gibson must share these beliefs, which
are not now Catholic beliefs. Have his beliefs affected his visual passion
play? It is difficult to see how they could not affect it and, at least,
fears have been raised that they truly have had an effect on his images.
Whether they have, in fact, must be a future judgment when we see which of
the many cuts of the film is finally released for public and critical
viewing.

19. This
book is most readily available today in a volume edited by Carl E.Schmoeger and recently republished,
The Life of Our Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ Combined with the Bitter Passion (Fresno:
Academy Library Guild, 1954).